When it comes to making your gaming PC perform at its best, cooling matters. From prolonging the life of important components, to providing a performance boost, it’s well worth investing in a cooling system for your PC. But, what type of cooling system is best for a gaming PC? Keep reading to discover the answer…
What is a gaming PC cooling system?
If you’re relatively new to the world of PC gaming, you may
be wondering what exactly we are referring to when we talk about PC cooling
systems.
Well, the answer is that a cooling system is simply a series of components
which work together to remove waste heat from within your PC’s case.
Shop around gaming PCs today, and you’ll find that there are
two main types of cooling systems in use; air and liquid.
Why is it important to keep your gaming PC
cool?
Although the majority of PC components are designed to
produce as little heat as possible, the fact is, they do produce heat - especially when subjected to significant
processing loads.
Many components are designed to throttle their performance
when they start to get too hot - so, if you don’t have a sufficiently effective
cooling system in your computer, you will find that your computer’s performance
degrades as it gets hotter.
Exposure to excessive heat will also reduce the lifespan of
your computer’s components. This is particularly worrying when you consider
that some components - such as the graphics card - can be expensive.
What’s more, other components such as the CPU and
motherboard aren’t easily replaceable. With that in mind, excessive heat can
therefore reduce the overall lifespan of your
entire system, not just individual components.
Therefore - it’s crucial that your gaming PC has a
good-quality, powerful cooling system.
What are the different ways to keep a gaming PC
cool?
As we mentioned earlier, there are two main ways that gaming
PCs are cooled these days; air or liquid.
Below, you’ll find more information about both of these
options and the pros and cons of each.
Air cooling
An air cooling system in a gaming PC will typically consist
of a heatsink (or heatsinks) and a fan (or series of fans).
It works by using the natural air flow within a PC’s case.
As heat rises from components, it is blown away using fans mounted inside the
case. The process of drawing heat out of components is often assisted with the
use of heatsinks.
Heat sinks are blocks of finned metal which are attached to
the top of a component such as a CPU. They work by providing a much greater
surface area, allowing for more air to circulate around the component, thus
drawing away heat into the path of the PC’s fans.
Air cooling is the most basic way of keeping a gaming PC
cool and is also the most affordable option. However, when it comes to very high-performance
gaming PCs, basic air cooling systems can be overwhelmed with the amount of
heat generated.
Whilst it’s possible to buy high-end air cooling systems
that can cope with higher temperatures, they do tend to be noisy and bulky.
Liquid cooling
In recent years, liquid cooling has become increasingly
popular, particularly amongst gamers who have high-end gaming PCs.
Liquid cooling systems usually consist of a heat block, a
pump, a radiator, a reservoir and a series of pipes.
Your average liquid cooling system works by attaching the
heat block to a component - usually the biggest generator of heat such as the
CPU. This heat block is connected to a pipe filled with a cooling medium (such
as distilled water).
This cooling medium is drawn through the pipe, away from the
heat block and to a radiator.
Once at the radiator, the cooling medium cools down, with
the radiator radiating heat out into the air away from the PC. Once cool, the
cooling medium travels down another tube back to the heat block. From there,
the cycle repeats.
The benefits of liquid cooling include the fact that it is
highly effective and able to cool PCs far more effectively than air cooling
systems. Liquid cooling systems also tend to be exceptionally quiet, and have
the added bonus of looking incredible too!
On the downside, liquid cooling systems do remain more
expensive than equivalent air cooling systems. They can also be more fiddly to
install and require more regular checks and maintenance than air cooling
systems.
Guide - want to know more? Make sure to set up the water cooling
properly with this water cooling setup guide.
Conclusion
Which gaming PC cooling system is best for you? It depends
on a number of factors, including your budget, your level of technical
expertise, and how keen you are to obtain a performance boost for your system.
If you’re happy to spend the money and feel confident
installing and maintaining such a system, and you’d like to benefit from the
performance boost that comes with such a system, then we’d highly
recommend a liquid cooling system as being the best way of keeping your gaming
PC cool.